Why is TKS fluid so expensive?

[Yetti]

Well when you think about it a coke is water, sugar, flavoring.   And people still pay to buy it when they could mix some up in their garage for alot cheaper

[mooniac15u]

The TKS fluid appears to be just one brand of deicing fluid that meets the DTD 406b specification.  Comparable deicing fluids that meet the same spec (and have essentially the same formulation) are available from other sources.  For example:

http://www.ecolink.com/deicing-fluid/

 

[aviatoreb]

13 hours ago, Piloto said:

My best anti-ice option

http://www.aviationweather.gov/icing/fip

Looking at the icing maps I notice that on most situations you avoid icing by flying below 12,000ft. It seems that for pistons there is no turbo advantage to avoid icing in most cases. The icing maps can change during your trip so is a good idea to check them while in-flight.

José

Jose' that is well and good, but that is only a piece of the story.  I have seen ice where it was not supposed to be.  And around here, a very common scenario is an ice layer from say 3 to 6k - and if that was not supposed to be icing, despite the icing model, then yeah, I like my inadvertent tks.   This is why I don't fly if I think there will be there, but any time I go near a below freezing cloud, I prime the system just in case.  Usually I can go a whole winter on a very small amount of tks fluid.  

Anyway, turns out the weather patterns are a little different up here in the North near the great lakes than by the florida keys.  Also, because we are remote and rural, we are not close to any of the weather modeling collection stations.  So we sometimes get very poor predictions.  I have seen the ice prediction map forecast lots of ice, (while practicing in my living room on the couch) but it is blue-bird clear sunny skies out my window.  I have seen the opposite - where there is not much forecast ice but it seems clear there must be ice and even my car is becoming covered in structural icing.  I use that ice-forecast map on a regular basis, and I use what I learn about the local topography and weather patterns too, and I use webcams along my route to see if I believe what I am being told, and I look at the infrared cloud satellite image to help me decide if I will be over the tops, and that nice new experimental tool at https://new.aviationweather.gov/areafcst that helps me see the area forecast tops, and pireps, and so on - to try and avoid ice.

But unless I just want to fly in the pattern 6 months of the year, ice is a possibility that I usually do a good job of avoiding.  But I like tks just in case, and I like it a lot more than squirting wd-40 on the wings.

ANYWAY - if you grant that some of us like tks- it is a relevant discussion to chit-chat about sourcing it.

[aviatoreb]

13 hours ago, Piloto said:

My best anti-ice option

http://www.aviationweather.gov/icing/fip

Looking at the icing maps I notice that on most situations you avoid icing by flying below 12,000ft. It seems that for pistons there is no turbo advantage to avoid icing in most cases. The icing maps can change during your trip so is a good idea to check them while in-flight.

José

Jose' that is well and good, but that is only a piece of the story.  I have seen ice where it was not supposed to be.  And around here, a very common scenario is an ice layer from say 3 to 6k - and if that was not supposed to be icing, despite the icing model, then yeah, I like my inadvertent tks.   This is why I don't fly if I think there will be there, but any time I go near a below freezing cloud, I prime the system just in case.  Usually I can go a whole winter on a very small amount of tks fluid.  

Anyway, turns out the weather patterns are a little different up here in the North near the great lakes than by the florida keys.  Also, because we are remote and rural, we are not close to any of the weather modeling collection stations.  So we sometimes get very poor predictions.  I have seen the ice prediction map forecast lots of ice, (while practicing in my living room on the couch) but it is blue-bird clear sunny skies out my window.  I have seen the opposite - where there is not much forecast ice but it seems clear there must be ice and even my car is becoming covered in structural icing.  I use that ice-forecast map on a regular basis, and I use what I learn about the local topography and weather patterns too, and I use webcams along my route to see if I believe what I am being told, and I look at the infrared cloud satellite image to help me decide if I will be over the tops, and that nice new experimental tool at https://new.aviationweather.gov/areafcst that helps me see the area forecast tops, and pireps, and so on - to try and avoid ice.

But unless I just want to fly in the pattern 6 months of the year, ice is a possibility that I usually do a good job of avoiding.  But I like tks just in case, and I like it a lot more than squirting wd-40 on the wings.

ANYWAY - if you grant that some of us like tks- it is a relevant discussion to chit-chat about sourcing it.

[aviatoreb]

13 hours ago, Piloto said:

My best anti-ice option

http://www.aviationweather.gov/icing/fip

Looking at the icing maps I notice that on most situations you avoid icing by flying below 12,000ft. It seems that for pistons there is no turbo advantage to avoid icing in most cases. The icing maps can change during your trip so is a good idea to check them while in-flight.

José

Jose' that is well and good, but that is only a piece of the story.  I have seen ice where it was not supposed to be.  And around here, a very common scenario is an ice layer from say 3 to 6k - and if that was not supposed to be icing, despite the icing model, then yeah, I like my inadvertent tks.   This is why I don't fly if I think there will be there, but any time I go near a below freezing cloud, I prime the system just in case.  Usually I can go a whole winter on a very small amount of tks fluid.  

Anyway, turns out the weather patterns are a little different up here in the North near the great lakes than by the florida keys.  Also, because we are remote and rural, we are not close to any of the weather modeling collection stations.  So we sometimes get very poor predictions.  I have seen the ice prediction map forecast lots of ice, (while practicing in my living room on the couch) but it is blue-bird clear sunny skies out my window.  I have seen the opposite - where there is not much forecast ice but it seems clear there must be ice and even my car is becoming covered in structural icing.  I use that ice-forecast map on a regular basis, and I use what I learn about the local topography and weather patterns too, and I use webcams along my route to see if I believe what I am being told, and I look at the infrared cloud satellite image to help me decide if I will be over the tops, and that nice new experimental tool at https://new.aviationweather.gov/areafcst that helps me see the area forecast tops, and pireps, and so on - to try and avoid ice.

But unless I just want to fly in the pattern 6 months of the year, ice is a possibility that I usually do a good job of avoiding.  But I like tks just in case, and I like it a lot more than squirting wd-40 on the wings.

ANYWAY - if you grant that some of us like tks- it is a relevant discussion to chit-chat about sourcing it.

[aviatoreb]

13 hours ago, Piloto said:

My best anti-ice option

http://www.aviationweather.gov/icing/fip

Looking at the icing maps I notice that on most situations you avoid icing by flying below 12,000ft. It seems that for pistons there is no turbo advantage to avoid icing in most cases. The icing maps can change during your trip so is a good idea to check them while in-flight.

José

Jose' that is well and good, but that is only a piece of the story.  I have seen ice where it was not supposed to be.  And around here, a very common scenario is an ice layer from say 3 to 6k - and if that was not supposed to be icing, despite the icing model, then yeah, I like my inadvertent tks.   This is why I don't fly if I think there will be there, but any time I go near a below freezing cloud, I prime the system just in case.  Usually I can go a whole winter on a very small amount of tks fluid.  

Anyway, turns out the weather patterns are a little different up here in the North near the great lakes than by the florida keys.  Also, because we are remote and rural, we are not close to any of the weather modeling collection stations.  So we sometimes get very poor predictions.  I have seen the ice prediction map forecast lots of ice, (while practicing in my living room on the couch) but it is blue-bird clear sunny skies out my window.  I have seen the opposite - where there is not much forecast ice but it seems clear there must be ice and even my car is becoming covered in structural icing.  I use that ice-forecast map on a regular basis, and I use what I learn about the local topography and weather patterns too, and I use webcams along my route to see if I believe what I am being told, and I look at the infrared cloud satellite image to help me decide if I will be over the tops, and that nice new experimental tool at https://new.aviationweather.gov/areafcst that helps me see the area forecast tops, and pireps, and so on - to try and avoid ice.

But unless I just want to fly in the pattern 6 months of the year, ice is a possibility that I usually do a good job of avoiding.  But I like tks just in case, and I like it a lot more than squirting wd-40 on the wings.

ANYWAY - if you grant that some of us like tks- it is a relevant discussion to chit-chat about sourcing it.

[aviatoreb]

Ooops - sorry I posted that 3 times.

[aviatoreb]

7 hours ago, Hyett6420 said:

On the bulk buy aspect.  In my Dads old village, (read choc box cover English village pic), they ALL used heating oil to heat their homes because they wrre in the middle of nowhere as far as mains services were concerned.  The village therefore all got together, and also with neighbouring villages signed a contract with a heating oil company that they would supply the oil for the whole village and the neibours.  The advantage being that the oil company got a good income stream and the villages got discounted oil.

i would have thought that if two or three airports clubbed together then they could "bulk buy" the TKS and then the pilots that need it buy it at cost.  Perhaps setup a trading company whose sole purpose is to buy TKS at bulk and then distribute it to the pilots in the "club". I do this sort of at EGTR where i have one of the flying clubs buy it bulk then i buy a gallon off them every winter.  

Andrew 

Andrew - that is a really good idea.

What is clear to me is that tks must have a much lower marginal cost than it is being marked up to for the general public.  That a huge bulk buy might earn a much lower price - from one of the already established tks-brewmaster companies.  This would totally be viable then if a large club buy were made.

I agree with the posters that said, why bother because if I spend $100 or $150 a winter on the stuff, then if you cut that in half to $50 or $75 a winter, then I am only willing to go to a certain amount of inconvenience for sake of saving fifty bucks.

[Jerry 5TJ]

18 minutes ago, mooniac15u said:

The TKS fluid appears to be just one brand of deicing fluid that meets the DTD 406b specification.  Comparable deicing fluids that meet the same spec (and have essentially the same formulation) are available from other sources.  For example:

http://www.ecolink.com/deicing-fluid/

 

From AccuChem  2 x 2.5 gallons = $115 inc shipping to MD

From EcoLink       2 x 2.5 gallons = $194.58 inc shipping to MD

 

[mooniac15u]

2 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

From AccuChem  2 x 2.5 gallons = $115 inc shipping to MD

From EcoLink       2 x 2.5 gallons = $194.58 inc shipping to MD

 

If there are multiple suppliers and nobody is selling it at aa substantially cheaper price it seems likely that there is not a substantial markup.  Producing, formulating, and shipping industrial chemicals is not as cheap as it sounds.  The production facility must have safety equipment and protocols as well as containment procedures for a spill.  Producing and shipping the material requires compliance with the federal Toxic Substances Control Act as well as any state or local regulations.  Shipping will always be more expensive for flammable materials.  This is not the kind of thing someone can do cost effectively on a small scale if they plan to sell it.

I have a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a background in the chemical manufacturing industry.

 

[Mcstealth]

40 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Ooops - sorry I posted that 3 times.

I thought you wanted Jose to get your point.  

[Piloto]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

Ooops - sorry I posted that 3 times.

I got your point. But looking at the icing map I notice that icing conditions changes rather quickly and your observations make sense if you rely on a 1 hour old report. This why is recommended to have updated icing maps onboard. Icing observations are subject to the type of plane flown. While a B777 will not show ice a C172 flying in the same area will be engulfed with it. The NOAA weather observations are mostly based on satellite IR images and radar rather than PIREPS. The new technology allows for icing predictions up to 18hrs ahead. Handy for planning purposes.

José 

[peevee]

14 hours ago, Piloto said:

My best anti-ice option

http://www.aviationweather.gov/icing/fip

Looking at the icing maps I notice that on most situations you avoid icing by flying below 12,000ft. It seems that for pistons there is no turbo advantage to avoid icing in most cases. The icing maps can change during your trip so is a good idea to check them while in-flight.

José

Maybe where you live but across CO, parts of WY, and UT today you have to go to FL210 to get above the forecast icing and even then there's a pirep for trace ice at 210 right now. Moderate across the sierra nevadas, no surprise there.

It's an unusual day and even with known icing not a day for piston poppers, but it's not uncommon to see ice high.

 

Anyway I'd happily pay twice the asking price for TKS if it was an option to me is what I'm saying.

Edited January 4, 2017 by peevee

[Piloto]

1 hour ago, mooniac15u said:

If there are multiple suppliers and nobody is selling it at aa substantially cheaper price it seems likely that there is not a substantial markup.  Producing, formulating, and shipping industrial chemicals is not as cheap as it sounds.  The production facility must have safety equipment and protocols as well as containment procedures for a spill.  Producing and shipping the material requires compliance with the federal Toxic Substances Control Act as well as any state or local regulations.  Shipping will always be more expensive for flammable materials.  This is not the kind of thing someone can do cost effectively on a small scale if they plan to sell it.

I have a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a background in the chemical manufacturing industry.

 

But why a gallon of TKS at $14 vs a gallon of milk at $4 should be more expensive. After all nobody is going to be poisoned with TKS but with milk. A few roaches in the TKS production facility can be tolerated but not in a milk facility. And unlike TKS, milk needs to be refrigerated in bacteria free containers. Nobody cares about a few bugs in the TKS containers. Bad milk can make you sick with diarrhea while bad TKS may only give you a frosty wing.

José

[kmyfm20s]

4 minutes ago, Piloto said:

But why a gallon of TKS at $14 vs a gallon of milk at $4 should be more expensive. After all nobody is going to be poisoned with TKS but with milk. A few roaches in the TKS production facility can be tolerated but not in a milk facility. And unlike TKS, milk needs to be refrigerated in bacteria free containers. Nobody cares about a few bugs in the TKS containers. Bad milk can make you sick with diarrhea while bad TKS may only give you a frosty wing.

José

Economy of scale. You should see what I pay for 6 ml bottle of dental adhesive which the primary ingredient is acetone or the little tube of tooth etch which is Phosphoric acid! Ridiculous!!! Shipping and handling aren't that much better. 

[mooniac15u]

16 minutes ago, Piloto said:

But why a gallon of TKS at $14 vs a gallon of milk at $4 should be more expensive. After all nobody is going to be poisoned with TKS but with milk. A few roaches in the TKS production facility can be tolerated but not in a milk facility. And unlike TKS, milk needs to be refrigerated in bacteria free containers. Nobody cares about a few bugs in the TKS containers. Bad milk can make you sick with diarrhea while bad TKS may only give you a frosty wing.

José

The components of TKS are toxic and/or flammable.  That requires a lot of investment in safety if you are going to work with them on large scale or transport them.  If a tanker truck of TKS ruptures on the highway it certainly can poison someone, or cause a large fire, or contaminate local drinking water.  Not so much for milk.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, Piloto said:

I got your point. But looking at the icing map I notice that icing conditions changes rather quickly and your observations make sense if you rely on a 1 hour old report. This why is recommended to have updated icing maps onboard. Icing observations are subject to the type of plane flown. While a B777 will not show ice a C172 flying in the same area will be engulfed with it. The NOAA weather observations are mostly based on satellite IR images and radar rather than PIREPS. The new technology allows for icing predictions up to 18hrs ahead. Handy for planning purposes.

José 

I was contradicting two things you said, from my experience.

1) That 12k and above is bad and suggesting below is good.  This is often completely false at least in this neck of the woods.  We can have icing from 2-4k with below 2 scud running not possible due to mountains, but clear sky above that.  Or there can be icing higher.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to climb out.  I agree the best strategy is to avoid.

2) Those icing maps can be much worse than just saying they are 1 hour old.  I repeat that I have seen on many occasions a day where there is an ice sigmet and the adds suggests severe ice, where at this local, in fact it is absolutely sparkling clear sunshine the whole day through.  The reason this happens here is that the lake effect from the ice about 50 miles south of here, and the reporting from the closest US city, Syracuse about 100 miles south of here, is skewing the models, with little bother apparently in their resolution for this region.  It is easiest to see that there is no ice when sitting on the ground and looking up at sunshine, but I have often had strong reasons to believe the opposite is true when looking up from the ground.  That likely I am looking up at low and heavy icing clouds despite that there may not be much indication on that adds icing map.  Again I suspect for lack of resolution in the models and reporting.  So I read those maps yes, but I also take them with a grain of salt that they often lie to me and I need other data in my decisions.  

[aviatoreb]

31 minutes ago, mooniac15u said:

The components of TKS are toxic and/or flammable.  That requires a lot of investment in safety if you are going to work with them on large scale or transport them.  If a tanker truck of TKS ruptures on the highway it certainly can poison someone, or cause a large fire, or contaminate local drinking water.  Not so much for milk.

That would be depressing.

[aviatoreb]

55 minutes ago, Piloto said:

But why a gallon of TKS at $14 vs a gallon of milk at $4 should be more expensive. After all nobody is going to be poisoned with TKS but with milk. A few roaches in the TKS production facility can be tolerated but not in a milk facility. And unlike TKS, milk needs to be refrigerated in bacteria free containers. Nobody cares about a few bugs in the TKS containers. Bad milk can make you sick with diarrhea while bad TKS may only give you a frosty wing.

José

Milk is cheap - maybe I should run milk through the tks system?  Should I run 2%?  Or whole?  Or heavy whipping cream?

[M016576]

19 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

Yeah - it's true / and I don't use a lot / just enough to wet the wings usually just in case.  On that basis 5 gallon jugs go a long way.

still any entrepreneur out there / or maybe an undergrad chem-e major could make some money buying barrels of raw ingredients and selling "Bobs-home-brew-Faa-spec-TKS fluid" at half the market going price but still on a big profit margin.

Www.tksfluid.com

AccuChem- i think they did just that... and their price, while not half, is the cheapest I've found.  It meets spec, and is labeled as such.  I bought a 55 gallon drum this year... have used about 1/2 of it, and it is working like a champ... as to be expected.

[aviatoreb]

16 minutes ago, M016576 said:

Www.tksfluid.com

AccuChem- i think they did just that... and their price, while not half, is the cheapest I've found.  It meets spec, and is labeled as such.  I bought a 55 gallon drum this year... have used about 1/2 of it, and it is working like a champ... as to be expected.

Too bad they didn't make it cheaper - Bobs-TKS would be cheaper.  I don't blame AccuChem for undercutting tks just a little bit to gain the market advantage but then keeping price as high as possible.  Bobs-TKS would maybe do the same.

I have also used accuchem for the same reason.

[Piloto]

2 hours ago, mooniac15u said:

The components of TKS are toxic and/or flammable.  That requires a lot of investment in safety if you are going to work with them on large scale or transport them.  If a tanker truck of TKS ruptures on the highway it certainly can poison someone, or cause a large fire, or contaminate local drinking water.  Not so much for milk.

Same with gasoline and is $3/gallon.

José

[mooniac15u]

10 minutes ago, Piloto said:

Same with gasoline and is $3/gallon.

José

Are you really trying to compare a commodity with its own infrastructure system to a specialty product?  The difference there is beyond even normal economy of scale. 

[kortopates]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Piloto]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

I was contradicting two things you said, from my experience.

1) That 12k and above is bad and suggesting below is good.  This is often completely false at least in this neck of the woods.  We can have icing from 2-4k with below 2 scud running not possible due to mountains, but clear sky above that.  Or there can be icing higher.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to climb out.  I agree the best strategy is to avoid.

2) Those icing maps can be much worse than just saying they are 1 hour old.  I repeat that I have seen on many occasions a day where there is an ice sigmet and the adds suggests severe ice, where at this local, in fact it is absolutely sparkling clear sunshine the whole day through.  The reason this happens here is that the lake effect from the ice about 50 miles south of here, and the reporting from the closest US city, Syracuse about 100 miles south of here, is skewing the models, with little bother apparently in their resolution for this region.  It is easiest to see that there is no ice when sitting on the ground and looking up at sunshine, but I have often had strong reasons to believe the opposite is true when looking up from the ground.  That likely I am looking up at low and heavy icing clouds despite that there may not be much indication on that adds icing map.  Again I suspect for lack of resolution in the models and reporting.  So I read those maps yes, but I also take them with a grain of salt that they often lie to me and I need other data in my decisions.  

NOAA utilize weather balloons that are very helpful in correlating satellite and radar observations for icing forecast.

http://kidsvillenews.com/2015/12/kids/its-a-bird-its-a-plane-no-its-a-noaa-weather-balloon/

Unlike you the NOAA guys are dealing with icing, snow, rain, and tornadoes prediction every day. I worked with them for airborne predictive windshear radar and was very impress with them how accurate they can pin point weather events with me in a CV-580 doing in-situ measurements. 

At least my tax dollars on something useful

José